.@tedcruz: "A lawyer at the FBI creates fraudulent evidence, alters an email, that is in turn used as the basis for a sworn statement to the court that the court relies on. Am I stating that accurately?"
IG Horowitz: "That is correct, that is what occurred." pic.twitter.com/2ilD17Me7K
— The Hill (@thehill) December 11, 2019
Sen. Lindsey Graham on FBI surveilling the Trump campaign: “Let’s put it this way, if you don’t have a legal foundation to surveil somebody and you keep doing it is that bad?”
IG Michael Horowitz: “Absolutely.”
Graham: ”Is that spying?”
Horowitz: “It’s illegal surveillance.” pic.twitter.com/cYLZ3JjMJ3
— Steven Cheung (@CaliforniaPanda) December 11, 2019
Acrually, he just repeated what was in the report, which Sean Davis and Mollie Hemingway already wrote about a day or two ago.
But we know that most people in the media do not read, ever, and so Ted Cruz’s televised interrogation is probably the first time they’ve heard these facts.
Cruz noted two deliberate frauds — perjuries — obstructions of justice — perpetrated on the FISA court.
The first was that the FBI actually had contacted Steele’s primary source — who they call the “primary sub-source,” because Steele, who knew nothing about anything, was considered the source itself — and that primary sub-source completely repudiated all the claims that Steele had claimed he’d made, telling the FBI that the Steele was exaggerating some of the things he said, making up other things, and in other cases passing off things said in jest or as barroom rumor-mongering and speculation as “verified information.”
Rather than inform the FISA court that Steele’s “dossier” had been completely repudiated by the very source Steele himself claimed knew where all the bodies were buried, the FBI instead told the court that the primary sub-source had been “verified as honest and reliable.”
Why did they say that? Well, apparently, they took his saying “all of that is bullshit” as an indicator of honesty and reliability, and reported he was such to the court.
But they forgot to tell the court that the thing he had been verified as “honest and reliable” about was calling the Steele dossier a parcel of lies. Instead, the FBI led the court to believe that he was “honest and reliable” about the things Steele claimed he’d said, which he himself denounced as either said in jest, or as gross speculation, or as simply untrue.
This is obviously the kind of fraud that people go to jail for.
Not DOJ employees, though!
But that was just his first point. The second point was this: Carter Page probably, at some point, told one of the spies assigned to him that he actually was a source for a US intelligence agency. I’ve heard the CIA, but no one is confirming that, and maybe it’s the Naval Intelligence Service or something.
Why is this important? Well, if he’s actually an asset for the CIA, that makes it pretty understandable why he’s talking to Russians — CIA assets often talk to Russians. That’s what the CIA asks them to do.
And this is patriotic service, not Treason, as the FBI would then characterize it.
Realizing that they had a major problem on their hands if this were true — because they’re golden evidence that “Page has been seen talking to Russians” is not at all incriminating if he’s a CIA (or NIS, etc.) asset — the FBI or DOJ wrote to the intelligence agency and asked, “Is Carter Page a source for your organization?”
And that intelligence agency said: “Carter page is a source” for our organization.
So that’s a big problem. If Carter Page is a CIA/NIS asset, then they can’t use his contact with Russians as evidence for a FISA warrant against him.
So what’s the DOJ/FBI response?
Well, a lawyer there — Kevin Clinesmith — deliberately changes the response of the organization from “Carter Page is a source” to “Carter Page is not a source,” and sends this forged, fraudulent evidence along to the court as part of the FISA application.
This is CRIMINAL. They were specifically told by the agency involved that Page was a source and therefore had a very good and legal reason to have contact with Russians, but this guy forged the email, altering it to say he was not a source and so reported to the court that Page had no good reason to talk to Russians.
And here’s the kicker:
He still works for the FBI!
Because of course he does.
Because Christopher “Straight-Shooter” Wray.